Monobox returns

Monobox release first album since 2003

You might think that Robert Hood is an artist who is content with the successes he’s achieved via his solo work and those alongside daughter, Lyric (as Floorplan) but this is not a man who easily rests on his laurels so after a long-time in the planning he is set to regenerate his much-loved Monobox alias with a new EP in October followed by an artist album in November.

Originally launched in 1996 his Monobox sound spanned a trio of EPs on his own M-Plant label, culminating in more releases including the Molecule album (in 2003) for French label Logistic, which later spawned a series of remixes including those of Ricardo Villalobos and Matthew Dear. A brief return came in 2014 as part of M-Plant’s 20th anniversary celebrations, which saw the release of a new Monobox 12″, Film / Rectangle. Speaking to RBMA that year for one of their Fireside Chat interviews, Robert said: “Monobox was an alien project. I read this book when I was probably around 13 or 14. It was this ominous black box that came from some other universe, and it was just sort of hovering over the planet, over a cornfield somewhere.”

In Robert’s mind the idea for the new EP and album is that this vessel has been lying dormant for 40 or 50 years and is now beginning to rise up again, or regenerate. Robert’s approach to Monobox was to create techno minimalism, but from an alien futuristic perspective. Returning to the moniker, his forthcoming EP and album encapsulates this raw, bristling and sci-fi tinged techno sound.

M-Plant will release Regenerate on November 26th, 2021

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Jeff Mills collaborate with Rafael Leafar

“Improvisational electronic jazz the way only Detroit can produce.”

Jeff Mills and multi-instrumentalist Rafael Leafar are releasing a new collaborative album, titled The Override Switch, via Mills’ own Axis Records imprint this October.

Aiming to adopt the boundary-pushing approach of artists like John Coltrane, J Dilla, and Kraftwerk, Mills and Leafar crafted an album of “improvisational electronic jazz in the way only Detroit can produce,” as Mills explains.

“The Override Switch reflects on the precise moment people decide in their minds that the only way to improve a situation is to act – to change the scenario and deal with the consequences as they develop to work for a better outcome.”

It follows Mills’ contributions to Tresor’s 30th anniversary compilation Tresor 30, which will be released this October.

TRACKLISTING

A1. Homage
A2. The River Runs Five Ways
B1. Infinite Voyage
B2. Crashing
B3. Soul Filter Buffet
C. The Sun King
D1. Soul Filter (The Dancer)
D2. Trigger Happy (With Safety Off)

Axis Records will release The Override Switch on October 15, 2021.

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Preview Planetary Assault Systems’s new album

Luke Slater will release his seventh Planetary Assault Systems album on Token Records this October.

The iconic British producer, whose last LP arrived via Ostgut Ton in 2016, follows up this year’s Say It Loud on Token with a full length featuring a wealth of brand new material.

A figure who needs little introduction to fans of the genre, but whose consistency in the studio and on the road has repeatedly marked him out as true pioneer of sound design and performance with a singular vision, Slater first minted the PAS alias in ’93. Since then, a slew of singles and LP’s from the industrious artist have made sure Planetary Assault Systems has become a byword for hypnotic, funk-heavy Techno in a purist tradition. Toeing the line between heady, psychedelic material and all out main room fare – Slater’s work as PAS captures the very best facets of the genre, with economically selected parts exquisitely arranged and engineered with a shrewd and uncompromising ear for what really makes people move.

On the new LP, Slater draws on studio material but also components recorded during the PAS live show – and he’s keen to let fans know the focus is well and truly on the dance floor with this one: Sky Scraping is a loud and unabashed celebration of the formative and familiar environments so loved by the electronic music community, the dark clubs and festivals made special by their unique ability to bring like minded people together.

Previews are online for ‘Sky Scraping’, the new album by Planetary Assault Systems.

Token Records will release Sky Scraping on October 15th, 2021.

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Stephan Bodzin Boavista Live

Stephan Bodzin has announced Boavista, his third album, by releasing its lead single on Afterlife.

Recorded during the pandemic, Boavista is a result of the lockdown period. Without being able to travel, Bodzin had the chance to look back on the vast archives of music he has recorded but never finished. So while spending time in Brazil, he picked his 25 favourites and finished them properly, with the best 17 making up the album. His aim was to tell a story with each track, “to paint musical pictures that conjure up very real emotions in the listener.

Boavista is another exquisitely crafted album of rich, synth-heavy electronic music that takes you into new worlds of emotion and leaves you in awe.

Stream the lead single below:

Herzblut Recordings will release Boavista on October 11th, 2021

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The sonic explorations of Valentina Goncharova

Ukrainian/Estonian archival label Shukai extend unmissable introductions to Valentina Goncharova‘s world within Soviet era electro acoustics out on two vinyl LPs (sold seperately)

Valentina Goncharova‘s (b. Kyiv 1953) musical career spans several decades, regimes, countries, and professions. A trained violinist, she began her studies in Leningrad in the late 1960’s, and while playing gigs in the city’s underground rock clubs, she crossed paths with a host of experimentally-minded musicians, including Sergey Kuryokhin of Pop-Mekhanika. It was at the Leningrad conservatory where she encountered the works of Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Krzysztof Penderecki, and John Cage, as well as the then fledgling protagonists of Krautrock and Kosmische Musik, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, as part of the unofficial communal curriculum. In the mid-80s, she relocated to Estonia and embarked on an exploration of home-studio recording techniques together with her husband Igor Zubkov. Besides music creation, she’s also worked as a music journalist and teacher.

This interview, by Lucia Udvardyova was born on the occasion of her release on the archival imprint Shukai, simply entitled ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, created between 1987 and 1991 in Tallinn and London: a mesmerising collection of minimalist, hypnotic compositions that transgress into the cosmos, but also allude to radiophonic experimentation, meditative sonicism in the vein of Pauline Oliveros and musique concrète. But essentially, hers is an idiosyncratic music legacy that has been propelled by the search for innovation.

Following the unpublished works of Valentina Goncharova, Volume 2 of Shukai’s archival project sits in direct contrast to the solo works of Vol. 1., Recordings 1987-1991.

Stream “Recordings 1987-1991, Vol. 1 in full.

Listen to the first single “Reincarnation II” taken from Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 below:

Shukai will release Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 on November 12, 2021.

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Record Makers to re-issue two Arpanet albums this autumn

Inspired by thematics which surround the growing scientific process of advanced electronic forms of communication, Gerald Donald is best known for his work as Drexciya with James Stinson, and he is the main member of Dopplereffekt. Arpanet‘s musical signature includes experimental tendencies to futurist synth pop and soundtracky spacey-funkadelic grooves. Typical retro-ish sounds meet modern technologies.

Arpanet’s “Inertial Frame” reveals a much more rhythmic dimension to what we already know from Arpanet and their (rare) live performances. Starting off with a laconic arpeggio overlooking cold synthesizer waves and chords, a distorted and ill fitted Germanic voice lands from nowhere reminding you why you love them so much. Chiselled electro beats à la Drexcyia eventually intervene and call for a dark and gloomy souvenir of Tangerine Dream meets Kraftwerk and J Carpenter in a futuristic goth melodrama.

Arpanet’s “Wireless Internet” contain nine classic tracks, devoted to the revolutionary technologies of Japan’s leading telecommunication company NTT DoCoMo.

Record Makers will release Inertial Frame and Wireless Internet on September 3, 2021.

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